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The Disturbing Case of Madeline Soto
That Chapter's 33-minute breakdown, the fullest single telling on file.
Watch on YouTubeWhat happened
Madeline Soto was a 13-year-old girl from Kissimmee, Florida. She disappeared on February 26, 2024, after staff at her middle school reported she had not arrived for class that day. On February 27, 2024, the Orange County Sheriff's Office publicly requested information from the community regarding her whereabouts.
The Orange County Sheriff's Office launched a search for Soto on February 28, 2024. Her body was found in a wooded area on March 1, 2024. Once the case was confirmed as a homicide, the Kissimmee Police Department took over the investigation. A report released by the department in August 2024 stated that Soto died of strangulation.
During the investigation, authorities located video evidence showing Stephan Michael Sterns — the boyfriend of Soto's mother — discarding items into a dumpster on February 26, 2024, the day Soto went missing. Inside the dumpster, investigators recovered Soto's backpack and her school-issued laptop. That same day, Sterns's phone underwent a factory reset, which Sterns claimed was accidental.
On February 28, 2024, Sterns consented to a police search of his phone. The following day, the sheriff's office reported that investigators had discovered photos and videos on Sterns's phone and Google Drive depicting him molesting Soto, with material dating back to when she was eight years old. Sterns's legal team sought to have this evidence excluded, arguing it had been obtained without a search warrant.
In April 2024, a grand jury indicted Sterns on a murder charge. On June 10, 2024, the Ninth Judicial Circuit Attorney's office announced it would seek the death penalty. Sterns's attorney argued against capital punishment, citing the Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments and characterizing the death penalty as cruel and unusual punishment.
On July 21, 2025, Sterns pleaded no contest to the murder charge and pleaded guilty to 60 additional sex crime charges. Later that same day, he was sentenced to 21 concurrent life sentences in state prison, with no possibility of parole.
In the aftermath, community members proposed installing a memorial bench in a park in St. Cloud, Florida to commemorate Soto, and organized a t-shirt drive to help fund the memorial.
